The Writer's Journey // Become A Reviewer!
Jan 28, 2021 9:51 pm
Hello from London,
What a pretentious title, right?
"The writer's journey" sounded a little less campy than "What I've learned so far..."
I'd been writing short stories for a long time, and scratching out story ideas for even longer, before I started writing the things you've read. You might have thought that I knew a lot about writing, given all that experience. In some ways I did, but in others I'd been sheltering from some harsh realities that have become clear over the last six months.
If you're not interested in my 'lessons learned' discussion, scroll down to the part that says "Become a Reviewer" below, because that's where the free offers for today start!
Here's some of what I've learned in about a year of trying to publish my work.
There's a reason things are done a certain way.
Books are traditionally over 40k words long, and typically a lot longer than that. The market evolved that way because that's what people like to read. It's long enough for full immersion, provides value in return for the expenditure and effort of choosing a story, and it's short enough that you're not committing to a month of struggle if it doesn't work for you.
I love the structure I've given my Emily Voss stories. Episodic, with bite-sized chunks of 10k words each that you can purchase in sets of three. It makes it easy and convenient to give the first episode away for free. It's like a TV series, fits what I see as our shortened attention span, and gives me the satisfaction of seeing the story proceed in discrete sections.
I would definitely not do it this way a second time. For a whole host of reasons.
- It's not perceived as a book by people who buy it, even though it's much longer than a short story and 3 episodes (30k words) is long even for a novella.
- It will be longer than a normal book when it's finished, but each bit is individually shorter than a traditional book, so it misses the target on both ends
- It made investing in cover design a difficult decision. Do I need one, four or twelve covers for 12 episodes published in 4 volumes? That can add up to a lot of money.
- I get the piecemeal satisfaction of publishing regularly, but I've diluted the satisfaction of a finished novel.
Writing is work.
You know this when you start writing, because everyone tells you as much. But it gets lost in the enthusiasm you have for the newness of your story idea.
The real struggle begins somewhere after your first 10k words, when you need to pick up the characters and move them on from there. Gradually, certain aspects of the exercise begin to feel like going to the gym on a cold day. You don't want to do it. You have to force yourself.
Then, a bit later, you realize that you've written something you really like despite the difficulty of the process, and your enthusiasm comes rushing back.
Treating it like work helps defuse this difficulty, by managing expectations. But since I actually have a job, it's very difficult to turn to my writing in my spare time when it feels like more of the same. I write partly as an escape from my job, not an extension of it.
Pick a process.
There are two ways you can write fiction. You can imagine your characters and an inciting incident, and then see where the events take them as youprogress, or you can plan your novel out with all the beats and acts prepared in advance, and a clear sense of how you get from milestone to milestone, then join the dots with narrative.
Both approaches work.
What doesn't work is when you move from one to the other and back again, breaking the structure you set out because you've had a 'better idea', only to realize you've now written things that make it impossible to return to the original storyline. It is for this reason that I've had to tear up episode 5 twice, and start again.
You're in it for the long haul.
Like most things in life, momentum is built up incrementally. You can't expect to start something today and compete with the best in your industry in six months.
Unfortunately, society keeps showing us the examples of people who did just that. Overnight successes. That's because we're inspired by outliers, not people like us, and we all see ourselves as outliers. Our expectations can get a little distorted. The truth: that overnight success was several years in the making.
You write a book once chapter at a time. You make money in publishing by having several other books readers can go to when they enjoyed something you write. My commercial portfolio is all short stories and novellas, which doesn't really attract that kind of following. I need to complete longer works, and more than one of them.
It's also easy to get distracted by the marketing. I have a website, this newsletter, a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a Patreon page. That all takes time to monitor, update, refresh and maintain. The better you get at doing that efficiantly, the more time you can dedicate to the heart of the job: writing. Unfortunately, you get a more reliable dopamine rush from interations with your readers on social media than you do from a day spent at the coal face, so your brain's reward circuit works against you. You have to be aware of this and counteract it consciously.
Becoming aware of all the above has been key to restoring my own productivity after an initial burst of enthusiasm that produced Episode 1 of Emily Voss. The key lesson is 'just keep going', because even a book is built one word, one page, one chapter and one rewrite at a time. It's all progress, even the phrases and chapters you discard later on, because it's all part of the process of getting to a finished product.
Become a Reviewer!
Free books below!
Authors, and in particular new authors, live or die by the amount of social validation on their Amazon book page. Sad but true. If you have zero reviews, you will sell zero books.
So authors gather reviews by handing out free copies to people like yourselves. They try to get reviews in as narrow a window of time as possible. Why? Because if you receive a lot of good reviews all at once, that makes your book "hot", and that means the mysterious Amazon algorithm will put it in search results, which increases traffic to your page, and sales, and ... more reviews!
The deal between you and an author are simple - you get a free copy of a book, and you consider giving it a review. To be clear: no author can demand a review, let alone a good review, because that would be against Amazon and Goodreads policies. That said, if you give lots of books negative reviews, or you don't bother posting reviews, you'll find it progressively more difficult to get authors to send you pre-release copies. That's why most people who read lots of review copies don't bother reviewing books they didn't like. They prefer to send the author an email explaining their view.
Below is a promotion. If you click through to it, you will find a large number of authors currently giving their urban fantasy novels away for free in return for a fair review. If that strikes your fancy, take a look and pick your poison. If it's my book you're after (Emily Voss, Volume 1), then it's in the list too, and if you download it and don't write a good review, I'll sic Ahazu on you.
Author Spotlight
I've four authors to introduce you to this week. The first is J.S. Fernandez-Morales, and she'd like you to know that her book will be discounted to 99c until the end of the week.
The Lost Signal by J.S. Fernandez Morales
For years, Dr. Ethan Fawkes has been communicating with a mysterious scientist using an encoded signal, and together, they designed the first spaceship meant for war. But when the government orders Ethan to dismantle it, his collaborator reveals a terrible secret. An army of powerful aliens is about to invade Earth, and humans must rush to prepare a defense or risk losing their freedom forever.
Collaboration with an unlikely ally is humanity’s only chance at survival.
Fiona has no memories of her origins, but somehow, she shares half her DNA with the invaders. For this, she lives a life of scorn and shame amongst humans. When the enemy arrives to enslave her village, will she help the humans who hate her or join the aliens who welcome her? The key to victory lies in the depths of her obscure past. Can she remember her true heritage before it's too late?
This next book is a free preview which you can download in return for joining the author's mailing list.
Midnight Caller by Ryan Hunt
People are disappearing on the Yorkshire Moors. Armed with an enchanted compass, soulstone revolvers and pockets filled with secrets, Agents Radford and Stone are dispatched to investigate and apprehend. Their lead suspect - a local vampire.
Whilst they can't outright prove his innocence, their gut tells them the vampire isn't guilty. But just as their investigation begins to make headway, another disappearance takes matters out of their hands.
The ruthless guards of Floor Thirty take over the case, ready to drag the innocent vampire to the darkest depths of their monster prison. Agent Radford knows all too well - paperwork and people have a habit of going missing on Floor Thirty.
Radford cuts a bargain with his rival investigators - 48 hours to catch the real killer, and save an innocent life from taking the blame.
My next offer is a free prequel / introduction to a series, a good way to find out if the rest of the series is right for you, risk free.
Berikatanyan Dawn by John Beresford
On Earth a stranger is convicted of murder, though he has no memory of the crime. A young architect wins his Masters degree, but -- still battling his demons -- he makes a momentous decision. A young woman waits for her father to come home, but her troubles are only just beginning. These three people share a connection they have yet to discover.
On the remote world of Berikatanya the people suffer the most cataclysmic failure of Elemental magic in their history. How will they deal with the loss of so many powerful magicians?
Berikatanyan Dawn is a prequel novella that can be enjoyed on its own, and also sets the scene for my SF/Fantasy trilogy: The Berikatanyan Chronicles.
Finally, here's an urban fantasy with a dash of romance. Stephanie Mirro's novel is available for Kindle, and for free if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited.
Wings of Fire by Stephanie Mirro
I wasn’t always the bad guy…
Once upon a time, I was simply Veronica Neill: daughter, sister, phoenix. But now I’m all alone, and life as the Falcon - an avian shifter and acquirer of fantastical things - is dangerously sexy and fun.
Some might even call me a thief, just never to my face.
But when my latest acquisition is stolen before I arrive and a gruesome murder is blamed on me, I've got a choice to make. I can get taken in by the hotter-than-hell agent sent by the Death Enforcement Agency and let them charge me with a crime I didn’t commit, or wait for my bloodsucking client to realize I've failed at the job for which he hired me.
I don’t like either door, so I'll take the window instead. Time to track down the real killer and clear my name.
If I don’t solve this murder, and fast, then I might just be facing a lifetime in a grim prison. Or worse, a lifetime of servitude to the man who hired me, a man who’s turning out to be more dangerous than I realized. And my kind lives for a very long time.
I hope you find something above you enjoy. Thanks for reading, and as always please don't hesitate to reach out.
Nick
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